What is the best way to wean off Propranolol 5 mg 3x a day? And how long?

I am not going to talk to my dr
Dr’s and nurses and preferred

So you won’t talk to YOUR doctor, but you’re hoping A doctor will magically appear on Fluther to give you advice with no knowledge of your history or your case.

Dr. Frisky says “Hit yourself in the head with a hammer.”

Yes, and that is for my reasons. I don’t like my dr and I don’t want her opinion. All she does is cause me more problems. Another Dr can just tell me how. They don’t need my history because I’m just asking how to do it cause I’m going to reguradless. My Dr knows my history and only causes more problems. And I get advice from nurses on here all the time so yes they usually do appear!

I get that you don’t like your doctor, so why not find a new doctor? Generally people wean off medications by reducing their dose over the course of a few weeks (like cutting back to twice a day for a week, then once a day for a week, then stopping completely). I’m not sure if there is a specific way to wean off Propanolol. If I was home, I could look it up for you, but I won’t be home for several weeks. This is really something you need to discuss with your doctor. You could tell her that you are going to stop the medication one way or another and you just want to know the best way to do it. She’ll need to know that you stopped it so that she has an up-to-date medication list on record for you in case anything happens. Have you thought about what will happen when you are no longer on this medication for your heart?

Well, I won’t have insurance for 3 more months. Then I’ll have new insurance and will be finding a new doctor. And she doesn’t want me off of it. It is actually causing me problems now. I cannot wait another day to stop. I can’t sleep anymore, I have palpitations back again, having breathing difficulty, extreme dizziness and lightheadedness to where I begin to pass out and feel that I will, I have very bad head rushes when I stand or lay down, I’m very nauseous, almost no appetite, I’ve been losing weight (which some is from the loss of appetite) and that’s really not good cause I weighted 106 and have been decreasing ever since being on it (now down to 96 lbs), I also have fatigue, very very tired and no energy, and I feel like I don’t have very good circulation to my arms and legs because sometimes when I sit or lay down they start to tingle or feel like when you have a tourniquet on for getting blood taken. So it is ruining my life.Yes that is about what I was thinking. I took out my morning dose today and was wondering how long before I take the next dose out; I was thinking around a week. Well that is very nice of you to offer! And do you know if prenatals are safe with this med? I am not pregnant but my husband and I are going to want to soon for our second and I want to be taking them before.

You are in a bit of luck here… I’m not a doctor but I was on this drug.
I was on it for my Graves Disease in conjunction with anti thyroid meds get get me stabilised.

Have you been screened for thyroid disease? Your symptoms are classic for overproduction of thyroid hormone, (which can occur for several reasons, not just what I have) and if your doctor is as hopeless as you say, they could have miss this. I was undiagnosed for months because I thought it was because of stress and I was seeing a Shrink who didn’t catch it either.

You can take a small dose of the pills when you’re pregnant, but I don’t think the drug is the cause of all your problems.

A racing heart, fatigue, weight loss… dizziness… I was shaking and sweated and couldn’t stand any heat. I couldn’t sleep… I’d feel hungry, but then eat and get sick or the runs… my thyroid was even swollen at the base of my neck at the front.

If you have not had a thryoid panel done, go to a clinic or DEMAND your doctor do one. It’s simple and will rule it out, if nothing else.

Good luck, and PLEASE let me know how you get on??

Oh.. and I really have to add this, and I mean with all the love and sympathy.. if your thyroid is going nutty, you won’t be very rational or thinking completely straight at the moment. It’s one of the symptoms. Seriously. I thought I was NUTS and was seeing a shrink because I thought it was all in my head and it turned out that it was a very treatable condition and all I had to do was suck up my pride and visit my doctor.

Really… I really really doubt it’s the proprananol doing this to you, especially such a small amount. it’s a Beta Blocker and a simple one at that… Please get a thyroid panel done and don’t go off the beta blocker. It will be helping a bit with the heart racing and if you go off it, it will get worse if it’s a thyroid problem.

Thank you very much for that info. I am not sure if I have had my thyroid checked? About 6 years ago I had an ultrasound done for my thyroid. What do they do for the test?

They check the levels of T3 and T4 in your blood and also the TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone which is low or undetectable in hyper people) Depending on the lab, they may only check TSH. When your immune system is attacking your thyroid (like in my case) there is no requirement for TSH because the thyroid is being stimulated to excrete it’s hormones (T3 and T4) by the immune system that has gone a bit nutty.

All they do is draw blood and check these levels with lab tests.

You had an ultrasound done? I assume looking for nodules that can cause overproduction as well. They didn’t tell you if you were ‘hyper-thyroid’? or why they were doing the scan? You need to go in and ask some questions.

Lots of doctors don’t like thyroid patients because we tend to be high maintenance. We forget what we’re told… mess up our meds because we can’t remember if we’ve taken them or not…. It’s a weird disease. But you might come under the care of an Endocrinologist who specialises in things like this (and usually diabetes too). Get her/him to write everything down and DO NOT feel ashamed that you get confused and forget stuff. It’s part of the condition. They should know that.

You need to go in and find out if you’ve been checked for your levels or T3 and T4 and TSH RECENTLY… you may not have been as symptomatic 6 years ago, but it sounds like you are VERY symptomatic now. Go bite the bullet and see your doctor and ASK about this and why she put you on beta blockers without giving you a recent thyroid test. Not good.

Yeah I don’t remember why they checked my thyroid on the ultrasound a long time ago. And all they said was it was fine at least then. I’ve had a lot of blood work done since all these things have been happening, but she never said anything about the thyroid. She checked my potassium levels and stuff. Yeah that does sound strange. I can call in the morning and ask if I’ve had that recently.

Potassium would be a concern because of your heart. She probably did calcium too because of the ‘parathyroid’ issues. But I think there is something else going on here that proprananol isn’t going to deal with, but it probably IS helping a bit, so don’t go off it. Please let me know how you get on.

Yes she did check. yes deff something else that’s for sure. Well I’ve grown and extreme sensitivity to meds and I’ve been a a but load of them in such a short time along with many many many antibiotics. So I really need to get off of it and just see what my body is really doing. And I’m going for a natural approach. Getting some vitamins and enzymes and probiotics and I know that Aloe vera tablets are a natural way of helping heart palpitations….especially when there is nothing wrong with my heart its been checked, checked, and re-checked. I really wish I would have done this in the first place, but my dr is supposed to be into holistic treatment as well. But the thyroid is deff something to check into.